June 24th- edonil- Shadows of Real (LV) Ch1

[edonil he/him]

Hey everyone, this is my first submission to Reading Excuses. This is chapter one of a novel in progress that I've been writing for a while. Honestly looking for any feedback anyone has, although I guess a couple specific areas would be how well the descriptions come across (by far my weakest area of writing) and exposition.

[Mandamon he/him]

Welcome to reading Excuses!  I'll jump right in with what I saw as I read:

 

in the 2nd paragraph, don't refer to "the captain" when you're in his POV.  I start looking for someone else.  There also looks like there's a word or something missing in that description:
"and luck for the captain that the bullet had been an inch and a half high."

 

So there's good action going in, and I'm starting to get interested, and then...infodump from end of page one through page two.  It's good stuff, but save it until later and introduce it a piece at a time.  I don't care about the character enough yet to know his backstory (and the design of aircraft).

 

 In fact, whenever you introduce a character you tend to pause for a few paragraphs to give backstory.  It's okay to give some extra information, but you're drifting toward the infodump side.

 

I found the part around pages 8 and 9, about giving nicknames, a little awkward.  Yes, the Captain might not know a mercenary troop has a nickname, but I wouldn't think he would need an explanation on how the nickname is a mark of respect.  I was more surprised that the mercenaries were even known by a formal name at all.

 

on Page 10, you say the unit is communicating with hand signals in air.  I didn't have a good feeling for how they were grouped or how far apart they were, so I started wondering if the hand signals could even be read that far away.

 

you also have two characters and a nationality named with an "A" word:
Arias, Alexis, Assarian
There were enough "A", "R" and "S" letters included that I had to pause to get them straight a couple times.

 

Last, you have a lot more "Tell" then "Show."  For example:
"There's always been tension between us, and I know that at least some of it is my fault."
I didn't really get much character tension in this exchange.  They were pressed for time, and trying to figure out what to do.  It's pretty natural Niles might snap at Soli.  But you then tell us they have some tension in the past.  Then you give us an agreement to get along.  It would mean a lot more if we were shown the tension first rather than just telling us it's there.

 

Overall, this has solid, tight writing, which is a good start.  I'm interested to read more.  There's some infodumping, but that's easily fixed.  I didn't get a lot of feel for character personality, though.  The more character traits and tags you can include shows me how your characters will act.

[edonil he/him]

I could just kiss you right now, lol. I have literally been looking for a critique like that for years. Thanks muchly! Apparently I still have a lot to learn, which is awesome. I also need to revise how I introduce people and concepts...now that you brought it up, I'm seeing a lot of influence from particular authors I've read that did just fine, but weren't writing the same kind of story. One question, though...what do you mean by character tags?

[Mandamon he/him]

That's what we're here for!  Glad I could help.  But also, don't take just my advice.  Wait for some others to reply as well, as they'll have more or different input.

 

On character traits and tags, you can fall into this rabbit hole for a while:

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/2325-nanowrimo-prep/

Thanks to cjhuitt for posting originally.  I know Jim Butcher's tips have helped me immensely in the last book I've been writing, especially the Scene/Sequel format.

[andyk he/him]

Welcome to the group. I'm fairly new here too, and I've already found it really useful.

 

I like your setting and concept, but I end up saying that a lot here - I guess it's why I'm in this group and not, say, a romance writers circle.

 

There's a lot of exposition - as Mandamon said, after the initial moment of action you stop for a big info-dump, and then repeat this whenever you add a character or situation. It gets the mix of steampunk and magic across clearly, but it's too much.

 

I didn't feel like much happened in this chapter. This may just be me - as I mostly write short stories, I have to get to the action pretty quickly. But not much seemed to happen or change. I know that's partly because you want to introduce the characters and situation, but I wonder if you could do this by cutting much more quickly to the action that's apparently going to be the next chapter, and introducing the characters through what the do then? It would help break up the exposition, and create some tension to keep readers going through the initial introductions.

 

There were also a couple of details that bothered me.

 

I thought the bit where Soli had to leap from one flyer to another was cool, but it didn't make much sense. These guys have radio and hand signals and (presumably) the ability to come up with a variety of plans in advance - why would they risk losing officers to horrible mid-air accidents when they could use those sorts of things? If this happened as an individual sequence because a radio was broken I'd buy into it, but not like this.

 

Also, within three paragraphs of introducing your female lead you had her thinking about getting a haircut. I know it was a way of getting some description of the viewpoint character in, but it was such a 'how blokes think girls think' cliche that it really bugged me.

 

Other than that, it seems to be building up to an interesting confrontation between these two forces, with internal struggles in both and the outside pressure of the storm. All of this brings together a good variety of conflicts and makes me interested in what'll happen next.

[Robinski he/him]

Hi there, I'm new here too, and loving it! but enough chat and on to the story...

 

Firstly, the title seems a bit vague and didn’t really grab me.

 

Not bad set up, seems like a standard sort of military engagement so far, think I would have liked to learn more about Arias' character in the first section, and there is a fair amount of technical description.

 

Good to have the two perspectives so early on, and intriguing for there not to be an obvious villain at this stage, despite the two lead characters being on opposing sides.

 

I think that there is danger of confusion from having two names beginning with 'A', especially since the country is Assar also.

 

Even if Alexis and Arias are close in rank (and I wasn’t sure about that), and have been friends for a long time, when on duty her physical show of affection would seem likely to undermine his authority with his troops, even if only subconsciously. I'm not suggesting she wouldn't do it, but it seems a bit naive of him not to see it as a problem if he has any kind of command experience (even coming up through the ranks), and perhaps react negatively to it (or at least be conflicted about it), even if he keeps that thought to himself. But maybe I was the only one that stood out for.

 

On the ‘aggressive’ or ‘defensive’ point, I would have thought a good captain would have a plan for both situations although, as you say, which choice he makes will determine the outcome, but he should be thinking about having options to choose from.

 

I like the sequence where Soli jumps to the raptor, exciting. I was starting to query the logic of that, but the scene pulled me along.

 

‘You and I both know we can't keep our raptors out in a storm.’ If they both know it, why would he say it?

 

You have a tendency to use the same word twice close together. I noticed several instances in this chapter. I think it stands out, and isn’t necessary.

 

I didn’t get a great sense from the dialogue between Soli and Navin that there were deep-seated differences between them. To me, a few strong words don’t necessarily mean a long-standing antipathy, so when Navin expresses the thought it felt like exposition to me, something planted in the story for later use. Then suddenly they are grinning at each other – their emotions in this scene feel inconsistent to me.

 

I do like the last line, great ending line for the chapter.

 

Overall, I enjoyed this start. I don't think that the characters have clearly different personalities so far. There is enough that I want to read on, and I like the pacing, I think it reads well (with some grammar quibbles), but you haven’t grabbed my attention yet.

 

Still looking forward to the next instalment though!